To promote participation in the employment sector in the city, an education initiative of Nelson Mandela University (NMU) and the Eastcape Training Centre (ETC) culminated in an awards ceremony at the NMU Business School in Summerstrand last week.
Twenty students who form part of a retrenchment assistant programme offered through the joint venture excitedly took to the stage to receive academic recognition certificates on Friday.
This capped their passage through the programme from about 500 students who have completed it in the past year.
The top performers, a selection of 10 each from the two institutions, achieved excellent grading in various soft skills and practical training courses.
Accredited and funded by the manufacturing, engineering and related services sector education and training authority (MerSETA), the programme is in its inception, having launched in September 2021.
MerSETA is one of the 21 sector education and training authorities established to promote skills development as part of the Skills Development Act.
At course completion, the programme beneficiaries are expected to walk away with newfound or upgraded skills to re-enter the job market.
Others can venture into entrepreneurship.
Of these, on an ongoing basis, NMU will provide education or training to 1,000 enrollees, while 900 students will undergo practical courses at ETC.
Individuals also have the option to apply for and undertake courses that they previously would not have accessed due to poor marks at NMU.
The project is expected to conclude in December 2023 and will see 1,900 retrenched participants completing entrepreneurial and technical skill lessons.
Mark Williams, the founder of Edupulse, a company facilitating the collaboration between NMU and ETC, said the education infrastructure in SA needed to advance to be competitive in the global community.
He said this could be achieved through education sector partnerships focusing on upskilling and reskilling people with job sector experience, including retrenched blue-collar employees.
“How the local education [sector] goes forward, especially in a new world created post-Covid, is critical,” Williams said.
“We want to provide students with a plethora of opportunities in education, and sometimes one institution might not be sufficient [to achieve this].
“We want to advance the idea of collaboration between institutions to bring a value chain that is more effective.”
Edupulse chair Prof Ihron Rensburg addressed the proceedings via a recorded video, lauding the top achievers for their studiousness and resilience to complete the short skills upgrade programme.
Rensburg later attended the event in person and, speaking to The Herald, said artificial intelligence and the use of robotics and other digital technology provided an opportunity to close the skills gap locally.
“We recognise this is a major, potentially catastrophic political and economic problem that requires intermediation,” he said, highlighting that his organisation worked to challenge the status quo.
“We are focused on upskilling our workers and people in manners that will enable them to build their own enterprise with the resources or retrenchment funds they’ve been given.
“[Alternatively], we focus on helping them upskill themselves to take on a new role in another entity or perhaps in the entity they come from.”
Business and economic sciences faculty executive dean Prof Hendrik Lloyd said the programme was important for its role players, the entire metro and the Eastern Cape region.
Against a 60.2% youth unemployment rate in the province, Lloyd said there was insufficient employment creation or job gaps to absorb those retrenched due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
“As soon as you leave a labour market with the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, your base and skills knowledge get depleted and outdated,” Lloyd said.
"[However], the main focus of this programme is: how do we create avenues and opportunities for people who became part of the retrenchment statistics?”
Lloyd said there were two broad ways in which retrenched people could re-enter the job market.
“They could either come back as future employees of established businesses or come back as future employers running their own businesses.”
ETC CEO Neil Harilal said the retrenchment assistant programme offered seven different courses, including fabrication, welding, hand skills and motor mechanics.
He said there had been an uptake in student numbers, with the programme aiming to create more future employers.
“If one has been working for 20 or 25 years and is now retrenched, they might perhaps have some money to start a business,” Harilal said.
“That is why we’ve brought in the entrepreneurship and basic business skills.
“We’ve also engaged the department of employment and labour and are providing them with the CVs of all learners to add to their job portal.
“Hopefully, that will trigger an employment opportunity for the learner.”
HeraldLIVE
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